Maybe "blowen" isn't French but simply OE "blawan, "
(blow)--Candice
--- Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> > Randolph would have been a few years early for me,
> and this kind of
> > bragadoccio character is more typical of the
> 1630s-50s. Never heard of
> > him. Any bio? Was this produced in London in 1650?
> Not the best of years
> > for theater.
> >
> > Mark
>
> There's a Wiki piece on him --
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Randolph_%28poet%29
> -- from the 1911
> Britannica -- I'll let you know more if I find more.
>
> URL that lets you into the play I mentioned
> (performed probably in the
> 1630s, as Randolph -- if he wrote it -- died in
> 1635):
>
>
>
http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/eprosed/eprosed-idx?coll=eprosed;idno=P1.0202
>
> This seems to be a door accidentally left open to
> the Chadwych-Healey
> English Prose Drama Database. I came on it -- the
> trapdoor, that is -- via
> the article on Shadwell in Wiki. Couldn't believe
> my eyes (and
> unfortunately doesn't seem to apply to the Verse
> Drama database). I suspect
> the C-H people will close the door when they notice
> it's open, but for now
> it works.
>
> The verses that the Higgins character speaks (and
> I'd guess, his character
> as a whole, and will confirm or otherwise when I
> read the rest of the play)
> is more specific than the bragadoccio -- in a line
> running through The
> Roaring Girl, The Beggar's Bush, The Jovial Crew,
> then jumping a bit and
> reappearing in Gay's Beggar's Opera. Off to one
> side Jonson's Gypsies
> Metamorphosed and (if I can make the argument hold
> up) Bartholomew Fair.
> All going back either directly to Harman's _Caveat_
> or via lifts from Harman
> in Dekker's Belman pamphlets, and Rowlands/Rid's
> Martin-Mark-all.
>
> Now if I could just manage to tie this in *directly
> to Shadwell's _Squire of
> Alsatia_ in 1688. So, Mark, if you *really want to
> make my day ...
>
> Robin
>
> [Who should be getting on with documenting the
> development of cant in the
> period 1530 to pre-1688, as a "necessary background"
> to blowens, rather than
> writing this. The reason being that I'm convinced
> that it's impossible to
> understand the what, why and wherefors of "blowen"
> unless it's seen as
> emerging from the complex of peddler's French terms
> for females -- morts,
> doxies and dells -- which first appear written down
> in 1530-1567.
>
> So I've not even actually started writing *directly
> on blowens yet.
>
> <sigh> ]
>
>
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